LP Edition of 100. With Digital Download / Booklet. Bandcamp

OUT OF PRINT 

Like the Monkees, the Monks, the Mops and Mozart before them, Climax Landers are a band with a theme song. It is a theme song they use to both begin and end their beguiling debut LP, and the tune itself is catchy as hell.

We were first made aware of this Brooklyn based quartet by the fact that two players with whom we’ve previously worked are members of the quartet. Drummer Anina Ivry Block of Palberta (FTR 166, 168, 207, 249) and guitarist Paco Cathcart of The Cradle (FTRCS 215) and Big Neck Police (FTR 246) are both putting in serious effort here, along with leader Will Moloney and bassist Charlie Dore-Young. Guests pop up on a few tracks, but most of this is the basic foursome slugging their way through songs writ and sung by Moloney. His lyrics and hooks are pretty amazing. Hard to say exactly what they’re modeled on, but there are whiffs of everything from Jack Brewer’s time with Saccharine Trust, to Ron House in all his guises, those Minutemen tunes helmed by D. Boon, and even the collected works of Happy Jawbone.

What this means is that the music often occurs at a friendly lope, the lyrics sound great (but are even better when you pay attention to ’em), and the vocals are non-doctrinaire without sounding lame. It’s a pretty sweet blend, and one cannot fail to wonder what the hell it has to do with a Sega role playing computer game with notoriously crummy graphics (the source of the band’s name). It’s above my pay grade to figure that one out. So we’ll leave that one up to you.  -Byron Coley, 2018